T HREE WEEKS AGO, for instance, Mr. Morgan Phi l l ips, attacking Mr.
Stewart of Stewarts and Lloyds for proposing a campaign against steel renationalisation, said, 'He [Mr. Stewart] does not think that the record of the steel industry under Private ownership is sufficiently good to prevent renationalisation.' Last weekend at Glasgow, how ever, Mr. Alfred Robens said, The national- isation of the iron and steel industry has nothing whatever to do with its present efficiency. No one is making a case for the public ownership on the basis that it is an inefficent industry. We have never said that.' Mr. Robens's reason for re- nationalisation was that 'the public ownership of the iron and steel industry is vital to the economic Planning of the nation's affairs.' Steel was not effectively nationalised until 1951, so Mr. Robens seems to be admitting that for the whole of its first five years Mr. Attlee's government was not able to do any proper economic planning. As Mr. Macleod would say, it looks as if Alfred has burned the cakes again.
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